Waist Deep

49

The door opened into a small room, walled with paneling.A red light bulb burned on a wide flat desk near the door.Another doorway was on the left, a few feet away.I fumbled for a light switch and found one.

Light flooded the room and I saw numerous photos strewn across the desk.Blank DVDs were stacked up next to the photos, along with unopened mini-cassette tapes.

A poster was on the wall, featuring a leggy brunette with her breasts barely contained in a medieval serving wench costume.The title of the movie was “One Night at the Inn” and the caption read, “See ADRIANA APPLE serve it up for all the customers.”The poster looked seedy, but professional.I wasn’t familiar with the name or the face of Adrianna Apple, but there was a list of credits near the bottom.I didn’t recognize any of those names, either, but I figured it to be a legit movie.Maybe it was Jackson’s favorite.Or his inspiration.

I left the small office area and stepped into the larger room.A huge mattress dominated one third of the room, though it sat low to the ground.I’d seen that hundreds of times on patrol-just a box spring and a mattress on the floor.Sometimes only the mattress. But this one was adorned with silky white pillows and a cream colored comforter.It was made, of course.Very neat and tidy, although the pungent smell of someone else’s sex hung faintly in the air.

About two feet from the foot of the bed was a camera on a tripod.The lens cap was on.Off to the side were different lights and microphones and some of those umbrella-shaped reflectors that they use in the movies to affect a certain lighting for a scene.Behind the camera, on the wall, was a shelf full of sex toys.

RogerJackson had his own little film studio.

He must shoot the scenes here on his little sound stage, edit them on his computer with that digital software and then upload to his website.Simple and quiet.I wondered how much he made at it.It didn’t look like he was making a killing.His stuff upstairs was nice, but not extravagant.

There was no sign of drug pipes, needles or ash trays anywhere.I sniffed the air again, trying to sense the remains of any marijuana or crack.All I got was thestale smell of intercourse.

I shook my head in disgust and left the filming room.

When I walked back into the small office area, I remembered the photos on the wide desk.I picked them up and started thumbing through them.There were several different girls in a variety of poses.I didn’t recognize any of them, but they all had the same quality-a young look but with enough mystery to it to let the guy watching off the hook.Their poses and the pouty looks they assumed asked the viewer, “Am I fifteen and look nineteen?Or am I nineteen and look fifteen? Either way, you want me, don’t you?”The photos were un-retouched and looked a little rushed. I thought that they might be audition shots.

I flipped through the photos, forcing myself to look each girl in the face, knowing that my eyes were picking up every swell of breast, every curve of hip, every hint of pubic hair.I was half way through the stack when I found three of Kris Sinderling.

That stopped me cold.Three audition pictures.The first showed her fully clothed, though with her shirt unbuttoned and her hip thrust out.In reality, it wasn’t any worse than the glamour shot that Matt had given me at the Rocket several days ago.The second showed her topless, but with her arm across draped across her breasts.I’d seen worse than that in beer ads.

But in the third picture, she was completely nude and on her knees, leaning forward.The shot was carefully staged, at just the right angle so that all the viewer could see was hip and the curve of her buttocks.Her left arm was crossed over her chest, exposing and pushing up her cleavage.

Beneath the third picture, someone had scrawled in black Sharpie “Star=Classy, 100 %.Just like A.A.”

I set the pictures of Kris aside and flipped through the remainder of the stack.There were no more of Kris, but when I got to the last photo, it stopped me cold again.

Smiling, wearing only bikini bottoms and with one hand shyly cupped over each breast, was Yvette.